I'm going to try to strengthen the existing pacifist means of dealing with Morgoth, but if you have any ideas for new skills that would bolster pacifist runs I'd be happy to hear them.

Make routing enemies a more viable tactic. Replace "killed" in the you have killed x [...]" enemies line in descriptions with "defeated", and have enemies scared off stairs reward xp as though they had been killed (ie defeated). Defeated uniques only reward xp once as pe normal. Have V drop his crown if fleeing.

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Parry I'm on the fence about. Shortsword of Galadriel adds a mighty 3 evasion with parry, defender blades add 2. At higher evasion scores, paying 1500 or 2000 experience for +1 is an okay deal, and if you're getting +2 or more it's excellent. I appreciate that it is another ability that privileges swords over other weapons, particularly as quarterstaffs are not very usable in their current form and great spears are relatively unloved. Also it leads into Riposte, which can be quite strong.

I say remove it. Abilities not changing up playstyles are boring, and it makes axes even worse than they currently are.

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I am wondering if a redesign of the throne room might be in order. The current one has an iconic feel, but is heavily balanced toward standing in the open with Rage herbs and singing Slaying. This condenses melee builds toward a very similar ending point.

Maybe just replace or rework song of slaying altogether. It's nice thematically but awkward in practice since outside of the setpiece vaults the toughest available enemies tend to push to the front making it somewhat overkill outside of killing Morgoth/Carcaroth. Being able to challenge Morgoth to single combat (by shouting at him before tension breaks?) would be fitting as well.